There are some mixed feelings in the Daintree community in far north Queensland about building a renewable-energy microgrid.
The 8MW solar farm with a 20MW battery and a 1MW clean hydrogen plant was pushed through parliament weeks before the 2022 election by the Morrison government with the promise of it providing renewable power by 2024.
The federal MP for Liechhardt, Warren Entsch, who has been championing the Daintree microgrid project for several years, was instrumental in brokering the deal with Scott Morrison, then prime minister, as an election sweetener.
“This project is rock solid, it will save some 4 million litres of diesel being burnt a year … and when they lay the power lines, they will also put down fibre optic cables so it will improve communications in the area as well,” Entsch tells Guardian Australia.
However, access to the Daintree is still limited in the aftermath of Cyclone Jasper in December, and final costings, deadlines and investors for the originally estimated $70m microgrid are all uncertain.
Daintree resident Doug Quarry and environmentalist and former Daintree resident Mike Berwick had three freedom of information applications to the Australian government refused in full or in part, seeking documentation relating to the decision to award $18.75m to Volt Advisory Group to build the proposed microgrid.
A response in February from the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water (DCCEEW) said the FOI request was refused “on the basis that all reasonable steps have been taken to locate the document/s requested and I am satisfied that they cannot be located or do not exist”.
Berwick questions whether the Morrison government undertook a proper tender process before awarding Volt Advisory the grant. “This amounts to government-subsidised development with no demonstrable conservation dividend in one of the world’s rarest and most irreplaceable ecosystems, where conservation investment should be a priority.”
Berwick was a conservation activist in the Daintree blockade in the early 80s – the protests that eventually led to the region becoming listed as a world heritage area. He later became mayor of the Douglas Shire from 1991 to 2008, and has sat on various scientific, agricultural and waste management boards, committees and advisory bodies.
“There is much that could be done for conservation and presentation with that kind of money – public education, buy back, ecosystem restoration, conservation grants and covenants, weed and pest management – all desperately needed both in the wet tropics world heritage area and in the rest of forest, all recently listed as endangered,” Berwick says.
In 2019 the Queensland government’s KPMG report on the viability of a microgrid in the Daintree concluded it “presents numerous technical and commercial risks and is likely to be financially unviable without significant upfront and ongoing government support”.
The report recommended an alternative that “enhancements could be made to residents existing SPS [stand alone systems]”.
Ecologist Dr Hugh Spencer, a long-time Daintree resident, established the Cape Tribulation tropical research station in 1988 in the wake of the 1984 Daintree blockade. He says that initially a microgrid sounded like a good idea, but this proposal “just didn’t stack up”.
“One important point is interconnectivity. There is no opportunity for feed in from existing standalone power systems … Then there are lots of restrictions once you do connect.”
The minister for climate change and energy, Chris Bowen, did not respond to Guardian Australia’s queries of whether the KPMG report had been considered, but a DCCEEW spokesperson says that “Volt Advisory has commenced work on detailed design and approvals” and that “after a careful examination, the delegate for the minister of the environment and water has determined that the proposed Daintree microgrid project will not require further federal environmental assessment”.
North Queensland senator Nita Green tells Guardian Australia: “To date, $1.55 million of the $18.75 million has been released to Volt Advisory Group, with the remaining funds to be paid across multiple deliverables.”
Third-generation Daintree resident Lawrence Mason burns through some 700 litres of diesel a week to run a shop, a cafe and a tour company in the region.
“The KPMG report in no way addressed my power needs or problems,” Mason says. “It was a typical governmental report written with an outcome in mind. As far as I know, no businesses here were consulted at all.”
Mason says the microgrid “represents an awesome opportunity for us to pool our power together and use one power source, which is way more efficient than the way we get power now”.
He says the people opposing it who were instead suggesting subsidising standalone systems “have very, very minimal power requirements”.
“For me, though, I’m running a busy cafe, I’ve got three cold rooms,” he says.
“The fact that people are opposing a renewable microgrid without a solution to the massive amounts of diesel that are burned here is just ludicrous.”
In July last year Volt Advisory Group received its permit for a section of network traversing through a part of the Wet Tropics world heritage area, and last September the project received an individual exemption from the Australian energy regulator.
The Douglas Shire council development application was approved in February.
Richard Schoenemann, director of Volt Advisory, says it has been developing the project for the past seven years. “There have been many meetings, including many one-on-one discussions with members of the community,” he says.
“The general consensus from residents and businesses is that they are sick of one survey after another and just want a system that works.”
Schoenemann says the grid will provide power at a lower rate than Ergon Energy Retail, but that “final pricing will be set after revised construction costs post-disaster [Cyclone Jasper] are known”.
Jabalbina, the registered native title body corporate of the Eastern Kuku Yalanji lands, which include the Daintree national park, “sees the Daintree microgrid as a positive”, says the CEO, Josh Paterson. The traditional owners’ group is “pursuing options that will see the Jabalbina and Yalanji poeople as equity partners” in the project alongside Volt Advisory.
“We are confident the project will respect the cultural landscape and contribute to the ongoing protection of the environmental values of our bubu [land],” Paterson says.
Living in the Daintree since 2015, Jeremy Blockey operates the Cape Trib Farm with his family, a tropical fruit business that also provides accommodation for tourists.
“I’m a supporter of the microgrid concept - why wouldn’t our green shire want to promote the iconic Daintree as a leader in renewable energy?” he says.
“But at the moment, there are a lot of question marks around the viability of this project, and the fact that it’s gone on for so long and we still don’t have an identified investor.
“So if this project is all signed, sealed and delivered, why have we been waiting for four years for that investment to come forward?”
Blockey has concerns over the microgrid’s long-term financially viability.
“If the facilities fade away into company administration, what happens then? Will the state government be forced to step in? We could all be hung out to dry with no power, having decommissioned our individual power plants, solar, diesel or otherwise,” he says.
“To me that seems to be a high-risk strategy. Let’s have some detail and transparency around the financial viability before we lock the gen-shed door and throw the key away.”
